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"Aziz Fuat Güner and Mazhar Alanson met as teenagers who were in love with The Beatles’ Rubber Soul. Their sole album as a duo doesn’t reach the melodic heights of their inspiration – what could? Türküz Türkü Çağırırız! is less psychedelic than the fuzz-heavy music of Barış Manço and Cem Karaca, taking more of its cues from Laurel Canyon than from Haight-Ashbury.
Güner and Alanson played with Manço in the late ’60s but reportedly weren’t fond of his fuzzed-out variations on Turkish folk. They recorded their first single as a duo in 1969, and by the time they recorded this album in 1973, they had found their own folk-rock voice.
The title track launches the album with acoustic rhythm guitar and a sinuous keyboard line that blends the familiar with the exotic. It brings the fuzz with a catchy guitar line, but the song’s charms are in its gentle melody. What makes this one of the better Turkish guitar records isn’t the fuzz but the more subtle licks of tracks like “Seviyorum Seni Canim,” a country-rocker that suggests they were listening to Sweetheart of the Rodeo and Buck Owens.
“Mevsimler” is typical of the album’s sonic landscape, a ballad that mixes acoustic guitar with the sounds of a thunderstorm and the duo’s wistful harmonies. Arranger Zafer Dilck had a reputation as a Hank Marvin-esque guitarist in the ’60s, and his work has something of the Shadows’ spatial depth. “Sür Efem Atini” is a crackling rocker with cowbell and a crisp solo. Like some of Manço‘s work, the guitar plays off the kind of Middle Eastern modes that Western rockers adapted as psychedelic affectation, but for these musicians it sounds like home. “Nerde Hani” is another gentle ballad, a faraway guitar line layered with bass and acoustic guitar. This is a band that listens to each other, the guitarist ringing out some kind of overtones in interplay with the vocal duo’s deeper harmonies.
Singer Hale Alanson, Mazhar’s then-wife, performs on a few moody tracks. Don’t get too excited by the comparison, but her presence gives tracks like “Hekimoglu” and the mournful ballad “Türkmen Güzeli” a hint of Love’s Forever Changes in its blend of the folk and mildly psychedelic.
Moody rocker “Adimiz Miskindir Bizim,” its verses based on a poem by 13th century Sufi mystic Yunus Emre, is the album’s highlight. Its atmospheric arrangement turns on a gentle acoustic guitar lick and a moaning string response that builds a gentle minor groove for five and a half minutes, making it the longest track on the album. “Upside Down” is the album’s one English-language track, a folk-rock protest whose harmonies are inspired by Crosby, Stills and Nash. Lyrics like, “They try to make us feel like a nowhere man makes their influences quite clear, but the sweet melody and arrangement sells it, along with a lovely acoustic rhythm solo.
In the ’80s, the duo added a member and became Mazhar Fuat Özkan,
whose music is slicker and less enchanting. The gentle folk-rock of Türküz Türkü Çağırırız!
is a departure from the more aggressive rock that dominates the
Anatolian reissue bins. Musical thrill seekers who want more than fuzz
guitar in their faraway rock will love this album and hope there are
more like it waiting to be rediscovered." - Pat Padua/Spectrum Culture